


i wanna see you (dressed all in white)

by trashyeggroll



Category: Black Lightning (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Ficlet, No Plot/Plotless, Requests, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashyeggroll/pseuds/trashyeggroll
Summary: Anissa loves watching Grace cooking in her kitchen, but all is not as it seems.
Relationships: Grace Choi/Anissa Pierce
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	i wanna see you (dressed all in white)

**Author's Note:**

> One word prompt from anon: [Cooking](https://trashyeggroll.tumblr.com/post/612182718540906496/cooking-prompt-for-thundergrace-i-hope-the-finale)
> 
> **Spoilers** for season three!

Sitting on one of the breakfast bar stools, Anissa watched quietly as Grace tended to the stew she’d been nursing to life all day, from just beef bones and water to the heavenly-smelling broth filling the air now. It was a long, tedious process of waiting, skimming, and stirring, adding spices here and taking out the brisket there, and most astonishing to Anissa was that Grace did it all from memory, hardly stopping so much as to measure a single ingredient. Star anise, cloves, fennel, coriander, cinnamon… Anissa knew the long list well by now, too.

“It’s a shame we don’t have any fish sauce. Life under siege,” Grace would sigh, washing her hands between tasks.

“Do you have any idea how hard it was to get _star anise?_ ” Anissa would joke back from her seat. “You can make it the right way for me, after all this.”

“As your _wife.”_ Grace offered a smile that made Anissa feel more bulletproof than lungsful of air.

“As my wife,” confirmed Anissa, sliding a hand across the table. “I love you.”

Grace’s fingertips met hers on the cool surface, and the shapeshifter’s expression softened. “You sure you’re ready for what your parents will say?”

“Psh, after all this? Disapproval of my engagement is nothing, and besides—once they get to know you better, my family’s gonna love you, too. There’s no question.” Her gaze dropped to their hands as Grace pulled back, fingers slipping away from her as she peeked into the stockpot again. She looked so at ease, so… warm, confident. Anissa swallowed against the lump in her throat, thankful that Grace was focused on the phở and not her likely pained expression.

“Every family has their own recipe for this. My foster parents are the ones who taught me this,” Grace was saying, rueful. “But the fun thing about getting married is… we can have our own family recipe now. However the Pierces like it best, and it’ll be _ours_.”

Anissa’s heartbeat was picking up. She knew what was coming, and not just the words. “Pierce family phở, huh? In that case, I think you’re gonna wanna add extra pepper for Jen.”

Grace chuckled at that, brushing a loose curl from her eyes as she turned to look at her fiancé. As much as they’d been through, individually and together, Anissa never felt as sure, as safe in her reality, as when Grace Choi was smiling at her, whether a reluctant reaction to one of Anissa’s bad jokes, or the bright, sunlight warmth of right now, when she was thinking of their future together. Anissa would do anything to give that to her, to be able to visit Grace at the bar once again, walk through the park and go see movies on their days off. Those things had seemed so… quaint, at the time. But today, and for too many unknown days ahead, Anissa could only enjoy these hours, watching her wife-to-be tend to something she loved.

A knock on the door, Gambi arriving before the others, drew Grace’s attention, and Anissa closed her eyes as the kitchen blinked, green-black code replacing the oven, and Grace’s confused expression glitched along with it, almost like when she shifted between forms. But that wasn’t what this was.

“Anissa?” she asked, her voice tinny and far away, and Thunder’s heart grew heavy again. “Anissa, what’s happening?”

The world around them had nearly completely broken to pieces, but Anissa kept her eyes locked with Grace’s as she replied, “I love you, Grace. I love you.”

Seemingly endless blackness overtook her vision, and then Anissa was opening her eyes again, with TC’s face leaning close over her. He quickly leaned back, his eyes changing from neon green to his natural brown, and took a respectful step away as Anissa sat up on the medical bed.

“Anything new?” prompted the younger meta, gently.

“No. Not today.” Anissa swung her legs over the side of the bed, reaching up to the base of her skull to remove the sensor TC had designed for this exercise.

On the other side of the room, another bed held the prone form of the real Grace Choi, the one who wasn’t doing any smiling or cooking or announcing their engagement today. She’d shown no signs of recovery since the fight that left her in a coma, weeks ago, and Anissa was fighting to not lose faith. Where she had so genuinely thought she’d finally get to spend her nights and mornings with the woman she loved, instead Anissa had become accustomed to the low whirs and flashing lights of the machines that monitored her fiancé’s physical hold on the world of the living.

The longterm care facility was a nice operation, clean and with kindly enough staff, but it smelled like a hospital, like sickness, to Anissa. Nurses were regularly in and out of the room, adjusting Grace’s position to avoid bed sores and muscle atrophy, though Anissa would take over those duties whenever she could be there. Knowing what Grace had gone through as a child, it didn’t feel right to let strangers constantly handle her body, and no matter what was happening out in the rest of the world, Anissa took full responsibility to bathe her fiancé in a quiet, painstaking ritual that usually left Thunder feeling raw and near tears. It was such a far fall for the powerful shapeshifter who’d lifted her dinner table clear off the ground.

“She’s still there,” TC was saying. “We know she hasn’t gotten worse.”

Anissa nodded, offering him a quiet, but genuine ‘thank you’ before he left the room. TC’s modified brain stem connections let him step into Grace’s mind, similar to how he’d gone into Khalil’s, and he’d found that she was looping in the same broken memory of their last day together. No matter how much Anissa begged, pleaded, or explained, the dream-Grace wouldn’t wake up from it, and so instead, she’d learned to just play along. To relive that memory in peace, to have that modicum of _Grace_ in her life, however long it would last. It was all she had, for now.

Ten minutes, or ten years, Lynn had said. Anissa would be there every day, would be asking every meta she came across at the boarding school or in other cities if they could help. She had made a promise, _she_ had been the one to open the door to the next level of commitment… and like Jefferson Pierce and his father before him, Anissa Pierce’s word _meant_ something in Freeland. She would never give up on Grace.


End file.
